So Abramoff dangled a carrot in front of his clients, advising them to donate to his philanthropic venture. Why not, it was for a good cause. Plus, he boasted, it would buy them access to Rep. Tom DeLay. It may indeed have bought them access, but what Abramoff’s customers didn’t realize was that a large portion of their money would never be spent on gearing up inner city kids to shoot some b-ball — rather, their dollars were shipped overseas to help arm Israeli settlers in the occupied territories.

More than $140,000 of the foundation’s funds, reports Newsweek, was used to purchase sniper scopes, night-vision binoculars, camouflage suits, thermal imagers and other materiel which Abramoff’s foundation called “security” equipment.

It is hard to stomach the irony. If there is any group in the US that can empathize with the occupation of the Palestinian people — it’s the Native Americans. But here Abramoff’s clients were, unknowingly donating tens of thousands of dollars so that Israeli settlers in the West Bank could continue to occupy defenseless Palestinians. You can bet that DeLay and Abramoff snickered all the way to the (West) bank.

If a Palestinian did this in the US, funneled money from a charity to buy weapons, they’d be indicted immediately. In fact some have been, and for charities that were quite innocent.

Also, check our podcast of American Indian Movement leader Vernon Bellecourt speaking at the Palestinian Right to Return convention on April 14, 2005.

“We Indians know all about biological warfare. They gave us smallpox blankets.”

When he met Yassar Arafat for the first time he said, “We are the Palestinians and you are us.”